Gaudi Room
350 Joo Chiat Road
Singapore 427598
📷: @gaudi.room
Tuesday to Sunday, 6pm to 12am
Our rating: 6.5/10 🛈
Tapas bar Carlitos opened in Joo Chiat a couple of years ago to quite a bit of buzz. After all, its founders are separately behind popular euro chow spots La Bottega and Esquina.
Since then, Carlitos has become a quasi-hotspot in Joo Chiat. And last August, it opened a speakeasy, Gaudi Room, joining other restaurants in the area with similar setups, like Asador with its back bar 60ml.
Walking into Gaudi Room after dinner at Carlitos is like entering a whole new venue. Everything’s inverted, more or less: The walls go from red to blue, and the furniture goes from homey to fancy, if a little impractical. We slide into our seats and try not to bump our knees on the thoughtlessly paired table.
The cocktail menu is presented on a comically long scroll; we feel like children opening up a copy of The Straits Times, our arms outstretched and eyes darting. Everything else – bites, beers and whatnot – thankfully comes in a normal book.
By this point, we’re certain the place was designed purely to dazzle the aesthetic-seeker and enrage the everyday human. We set aside the urge to lay that darn scroll flat on the floor and instead hurry to place our orders.
Gaudi’s Summers Smash (S$24) is a cool, clean gin basil smash. Vodka takes the place of the main spirit, while cucumber and agave complement the basil’s vegetal notes.
The drink is “smashable” indeed, and a fun way to kick things off. We imagine this would hit the spot on a hot afternoon, even if the venue opens only around sundown. The edible flower, though, is a sign of what’s to come.
Veneno de la Passion (S$24) is the bar’s take on a pornstar martini, served with a sidecar of cava. The earthenware cup makes this a tad unwieldy, but the flavour is actually alright.
Pornstar martinis can get cloying when there’s no room for bubbles to counter the sugar. It’s the same here, though the ice sphere gives the impression of some thought being given to dilution. For the most part, though, we find ourselves awkwardly juggling the two halves.
“It’s very savoury,” we’re warned as we order La Sagrada Paloma ($22). We sense a little mislabeling here: Instead of grapefruit and tequila, we’re socked in the face with chilli and salt, with any semblance of fruitiness buried beneath. (Was it really impossible to just be honest and call this a spicy margarita?)
Oddness aside, the presentation again presents a headache. Even as we avoid it, the ever-despicable half-glass rim leaves our table and lap in a mess by the end.
We get a spiked tea vibe from The Dream of Salvador Dali (S$26), a rum-pisco concoction that’s certainly more well thought out than the previous drink. Those tea notes come from a combination of herbs and florals: lavender and jasmine infusions, plus two sage leaves that float atop the drink.
Funnily (or perhaps very tellingly) enough, this more balanced mix is one of the plainer-looking drinks on Gaudi Room’s menu.
What looks like a run-of-the-mill espresso martini is actually Cafe de la Rambla (S$24), which, come to think of it, is not very different from a run-of-the-mill espresso martini.
We’re told there’s bread and miso water in there somewhere, which we assume is what gives the drink its body and a very mild hint of savouriness. It’s a decent drink, even if other places do an umami espresso martini better.
Cocktails at Gaudi Room are very much a mixed bag. While the place isn’t the kind to put on major theatrics, it’s still guilty of the usual Instagram-worthy trappings, which more often than not detract from the actual flavours in the cup.
Unsurprisingly, the most successful drinks are those that seem to focus on the ingredients instead of showmanship. If you order those, though, we can’t guarantee you’ll have much to show for it on your feed later. Priorities, priorities.
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